Nine Lives
by BlueNBlackNeko
Summary: What happens to Yamagata when he's left for dead after his encounter with Tetsuo? What happens to Neo-Tokyo as political figures and the Colonel all seek to gain power over what happens next? What really happened to Kaneda when he was caught in the explosion? The story of what happened after the explosion of Neo-Tokyo took place. Slight YamaKai yaoi. Based on the anime. Enjoy!
1. Preface

Authors Note: Yo! So, first Akira story, woo!

Anyway, copyright stuff, some of these quotes belong to Katsuhiro Otomo, you'll recognize them and all the characters belong to him too, except for Hachiro. He's mine.

This is kind of for all of you who wanted that ending where Yamagata didn't die. So, here it is. I hope you enjoy it! And Reviews are always welcome!

* * *

8:03 AM

"Kai was right, you did this didn't you, Tetsuo."

"All you're good for now, is telling me where Kaneda's bike is…"

"Tetsuo!" Yamagata could feel the blood pulsing through him. His hands clenched into fists as anger surged from his belly.

Tetsuo let the encapsulated drugs fall from the palm of his hands, and onto the floor. "It's a piece of shit anyway."

Yamagata had, had enough and surged forward, climbing up the piled tables and chairs that Tetsuo sat on. Tetsuo grinned…and then…

Kai watched, he couldn't move, or do anything. All he could do was watch, and stare as the horror before him unfolded. It was as though time had slowed down, and everything was in slow motion. Yamagata suddenly fell back as though a bullet had hit him, and then, it was like blood had exploded from the back of Yamagata's head. Kai had just barely caught the corpse and from the pile of rubble he heard an eery laugh. Kai didn't dare move, he dared not provoke Tetsuo himself, not unless…not unless he wanted to explore the same fate as the bartender and Yamagata. Slowly he watched the pale figure in the darkness get up and stride out of the bar, paying little to no mind to Kai himself. Kai only watched, wide eyed and heart ready to beat out of his chest, waiting, for Tetsuo to leave. Once there were no more footsteps to be heard, he let out a breath and then turned his attention back to the corpse in his arms.

"Y-Yama?" it was hard to talk. The shock of all that had gone down in the past five minutes was just settling in.

There was no answer from the bloody corpse. Kai stared, from one end of the bar where the bartender lay, to Yamagata's body.

"No…Yamagata! You can't be dead."

But the body lay limp in his arms. Blood dripped from the back of his head and onto the floor and Kaisuke's hands. Slowly he lowered the body to the ground.

"Yamagata?" He could feel his body shaking and a sudden realization of what had just happened...Tetsuo had killed Yamagata. He tried to swallow back the tears that were coming forth. It was a struggle.

Fear was enveloping him, fear, shock, everything. He had to find Kaneda, if…if Kaneda was alive, that was. And then he ran out of the broken down bar and onto his bike…then he looked over at Yamagata's blue bike…not everything was setting in yet. But he went over to it and sat on it instead, he could get his later, Kaneda would know what to do with Yamagata's bike.

* * *

10:21 A.M.

Hachiro leaned over the bartender's body. It was obvious he was dead, he ran his hand over the man's eyes to close them, and then turned to the body in the middle of the room, a teen's body, no older than seventeen it seemed. His eyes were closed and blood had stopped running out of his head. The man narrowed his eyes and leaned down putting his forefinger and middle finger over the boy's neck to feel a pulse. He could barely make it out…but it was there.

"Amazing…" he whispered to himself. Outside some of the others yelled, "Well, Hachiro? We don't got all day, there are casualties all over town! Come on!"

He sighed and made his decision, "Yeah, I'll need a stretcher on the double!"

Quickly the others from the emergency vehicle made their way down into the bar. He helped gently pick the boy's body up and put it in the stretcher. They'd suffered a 90% death rate throughout the whole of the day so far. Hachiro was all for finding someone who might, might still have the chance to be saved.

He got into the truck and started it up again, driving straight towards the nearest hospital, so the boy could be taken care of. One alive out of twenty in the past hour was a good thing. There had been so many casualties, and many of them looked alike, all pointed to this 'Akira' kid who was roaming the streets. Other casualties were due to a massive mob of people from the Akira cult following the boy around as though he were a god. As he drove he sighed, if this continued, pretty soon the city would be in haywire and it'd be near impossible to do his job, besides the fact that he'd heard the army had overthrown the local government in a coup d'etat. He shook his head as he drove, it seemed like the world was about to come to an end, and that meant more deaths and more wounded.

He drove faster trying to get through the massive morning traffic through the streets was one of the biggest pain in the asses he could have faced.

As they got to the nearest hospital he had them get the boy off the truck and inside, before making yet another trip. In the emergency room where they set the boy, doctors and surgeons got to work. Hachiro wondered if they boy would make it, or if it was too late. He sighed deeply, what a tragedy it would be if in all the day this was the only one alive that he'd picked up out of so many dead that he encountered and he just ended up dying in the end anyway. He grit his teeth together and left, he almost didn't want to know if the kid died or not, just to be happy with himself for maybe, maybe saving one life today.

* * *

5:18 P.M.

Hachiro felt tired, it had been a long day. And he wasn't finished bringing people in yet. The world had become chaotic. The cult group that had been following the boy they called Lord Akira around had been killed on the bridge when the boy destroyed it while trying to destroy the tanks that were attacking him. The mob cult had also been getting into fights earlier on that day. The military had released tanks onto the streets, making it hard to do anything. Too many people had been caught in the crossfire. Only a few people had been escaping the madness, and those who did stayed in their homes.

Hachiro wished he'd stayed at home as well that day. He was tired of seeing so much blood in one single day. Even when the terrorist bombings were happening before this Akira kid had risen up there hadn't been this much death. Now he was roaming the hospital instead, with a cup of fresh coffee. He was going to need that coffee for the next few hours.

He paced the room...and then he remembered, that boy, the boy, he'd saved earlier...or hopefully. He knew he didn't want to know, but curiosity was getting the best of him. So, he went to the receptionist, "Who was that boy I got in hear earlier today, about seventeen, with a massive head injury that looked like it was caused by Akira. I found him in a bar."

She sighed, "What time did you bring him in, Hachiro?"

"Hmm...About 10:30 I think."

She nodded and after a few minutes of searching a few logs in the computer she nodded, "Yamagata Toshiro."

"Is he still alive..." he really was afraid he wasn't going to regret asking her.

"Hmm...yes it seems so. Though, he's been in a deep coma and it's doubtful he'll ever wake up. His entire left hemisphere of his brain was...well blood. So even if he does wake up he'll never be able to function properly again."

He frowned, "So, he'll just be a vegetable?"

She nodded, a look of sympathy on her face, she knew how hard he'd been working and how few people he'd managed to rescue in the day so far.

"You did your best," she said softly.

"I wanted to do more. Being a vegetable is hardly what you'd call living," he turned away from her, stomping off back to his truck. Quietly his mind told him that he knew he'd regret asking. He looked outside, dusk was descending upon the city of Neo-Tokyo. The battle between Akira and the military was finally at an end. Hachiro got up and walked to his emergency vehicle again, more calls would be coming soon and he had to be ready.

Kai felt damn tired by the time he got back to the old Harukiya. His bike was still there, completely untouched, well…that was a relief. He'd been running all the way from the gutters outside the military strong hold back to the Harukiya. It was perhaps a three hour walk but he'd had to hurry. He'd heard that something was going on at the highway bridge near the Olympic Stadium. That was probably where Kaneda had gone after getting his own bike. All the public news channels were telling them that that was where all the action was. Or at least that's what Kai had come across.

He sat down slowly on his bike and took a deep breath. Then he chanced a look at the old bar. From the outside it looked fine, the same old ugly streets and flickering sign. The graffitied walls, everything. But he dared not go inside, lest he'd find Yamagata's body again. He swallowed back the tears and emotion that threatened to come forth again. No…Yamagata was gone. Tetsuo had killed him. He'd seen it, and he didn't want to go inside and look at that body again. He turned on the bike and quickly rode away. He had to go help Kaneda fight against Tetsuo…or whatever monster Tetsuo had become.

* * *

6:57 A.M.

In the hospital, there was an odd trembling, almost like an earthquake had occurred. Of course to the residents in the hospital it was hardly anything to worry about, perhaps a 3.0 on the Richter scale, but nothing much else to worry about. As soon as it seemed to pass, they continued on in their conversations and other duties. It was Japan after all, it wasn't like earthquakes were a novel thing unlike the novelty of Lord Akira rising up again.

It wasn't until a moment later when someone was looking outside through the windows sipping at their third cup of coffee that morning. Something odd came up out of the horizon, like a black abyssal sphere, swallowing everything in its path. It was coming upon them fast. Getting larger and traveling miles in a matter of seconds.

The man pulled a nurse over to see it, "What is that?"

She blinked, "I-I don't know."

The man had an innate feeling the explosion he was seeing was not a good one, that it was a destructive force coming upon them far too rapidly for his liking. Quickly he put down the cup of coffee and began yelling, "Everyone! Get all wounded and injured who can run out of here! Leave everyone else! come on move!" everyone on that floor who'd heard was rapidly running, moving, patients who could be released were released. The ones, such as Yamagata were left behind as chaos ensued in the hospital. The hallways filled up with people trying to get out of the building. In a sick ballet several people jumped off, others waited to be consumed into the heart and soul of Lord Akira. Still others, more sensible, feared for their lives and a mob pushed it's way through doors, trampling those too weak and small. The world was coming to an end a second time around. And not everyone made it. The explosion surged forth and most who were trapped inside were consumed and died along with all the buildings and other things caught up in it.

But the explosion was not a regular explosion, it was also the explosion of a mind, and not a single mind. Inside, was a being...that called itself, Tetsuo. Out of all the people it had consumed in it's explosive manner it came across one person in the hospital, one person it was surprised to come across. It recognized the damage it had caused, And it recognized what patterns it could use to fix the damage it had caused so rashly. Quickly it mended the damage, and slowly the brain began to see again, to understand again and then Yamagata came into consciousness.

He lay in the abyss...it was white all around him. Inside, what was left of the buildings floated past him. And then, then he was outside of it again, on rubble, and he watched as the explosion began to retract, it grew smaller and farther away and then he saw nothing of it anymore. Then, morning light poked through the clouds above. And Yamagata surveyed his surroundings. A majority of Neo-Tokyo had been destroyed. Destroyed by something neither he nor many others understood. But on the far side of the city, a few skyscrapers still stood and part of Neo-Tokyo it seemed had survived unlike the old city.

It was 7:09 in the morning, and Yamagata had evaded death again.


	2. Chapter 1

Hopefully I didn't butcher Kaneda's character here too much, if I did, I'm dearly sorry and I'd appreciate it greatly if you reviewed for me, and tell me how to fix it. Otherwise, I'll be really glad if I managed to do a decent job of his character. I also hope this chapter doesn't seem too rushed. Anyways, thank you for reading, and reviews and everything is greatly appreciated!

* * *

They drove out of the ruins the Olympic Site, and most of the city, to the part that had been saved. For a moment there was euphoria, a moment of happiness and pleasure in the ride. Kaisuke edged back on the seat of his motorcycle as his front wheel rose into the air momentarily. He grinned to Kei and Kaneda riding Kaneda's now completely wrecked bike. Kai decided to make a mental note for later to make fun of Kaneda's bike. They rode through the streets and Kai could feel the cool morning air in his face. Some skyscrapers hadn't been destroyed, some still stood tall and proud on the other end of the city. But most of Neo-Tokyo had been destroyed. Kai wasn't sure where they were going. At this point it didn't even matter; somehow riding from the abyss and the confusion had felt good, almost like none of this had happened. In a matter of days, so much had happened. Kai sighed, no, he wasn't going to think of it, he'd be thinking of it later anyway, but for now, he wouldn't. For now, he would enjoy the moment. The momentary pleasure…because knowing how politics worked, it would only go downhill from here.

The sun was rising in the wreckage of Neo-Tokyo.

* * *

Yamagata looked at the world around him. He stood in a broken street with tumbled buildings beside him. His memory failed to tell him what could have happened. He could hardly grasp it himself. Only as he went up to scratch his head and felt a bandage on it, he realized he was in a hospital gown. It brought back the memory of Tetsuo. He shivered inside; that was his last memory, was Tetsuo, Tetsuo laughing, eerily, with a handful of capsules he'd been dumping on the floor. The memory chilled him. What had Tetsuo done to him that had landed him in the hospital? He couldn't remember anything from that point on. As he observed the cluttered world around him, he spotted the horizon on which skyscrapers still stood tall.

They seemed so inviting compared to the dump around him. But he wondered what had happened to his friends and whether Kaneda was really dead. And what of Kai? Had Tetsuo done something to Kai? No, Kai must have been the one who brought him there. He sorted out his thoughts to what would have been their course of action. They'd have probably gone to the city. They were probably trying to raid bars too, he grinned to himself excited to have survived his encounter with Tetsuo and ready to find his friends. He set out, following the other crowd of migrating people who were headed for the remanents of the city in the distance.

* * *

The ground had fallen apart where it had been whole before. They avoided long breaks in the ground and took long routes through the city. What had been outstanding towers were now broken glass, dust, broken pipes and infrastructure. Places that were once recognizable in their grandeur were now as much of rubble as the old city that had suffered much the same fate.

There were little to no survivors to be found after such a massive and deadly explosion. The few who had survived were lucky enough to have been in tunnels, basements and emergency bunkers at the time of the explosion. They drove on; those others who had survived were walking slowly to the other side of the city that had been spared from the massive power of the explosion.

As they reached the end of the wreckage where the world around them was suddenly whole again, the debate went up, whether they should join the other survivors. Kei was the one to start the debate, naturally being the one who'd been involved in the anti-military movement.

"Alright then, we'll stay here for the night," Kaneda announced. They were a few blocks away from the part of the city that still stood tall. They were staying in what was left of the tenth district dorm house. From the looks and smells of it, it was a girl's dorm. The explosion had not taken away from the wreaking smell of women's perfume that pervaded what was left of the building. Half the building had been leveled; the other half had somehow survived.

They'd parked their bikes outside and roamed the building for the most comfortable of rooms left, and raided the kitchen for any left-over food. Most of the food should have been alright still. As Kaneda 'prepared' the food, Kai and Kei seated themselves at the table. Kai had trusted Kei, but being the only one in the gang with even the slightest level of intellectual intelligence, he had to question Kei's opinion.

"So, why are we even staying here? I mean I don't mind, so long as I'm getting some food, but what's wrong with the nice side of town?" he asked her, knowing Kaneda wouldn't have the slightest bit of a good answer.

She looked serious, "Well, ever since the military coup yesterday and everything since, we don't even know who's in power right now. For all we know the entire democratic body that was seated there two days ago could be dead. And no one knows if the colonel made it out of the explosion alive."

While Kai thought it over, Kaneda spoke; he couldn't help but be a part of a conversation "So? What's it matter who's in power?"

"It matters because of who makes the decisions. And think about it, after this incident, countries like the U.S. are going to lend us aid. If someone like the colonel is in power, he's not going to want to accept their help. If the prime minister is still alive, or someone from the House of Representatives, then it'll probably be in their best interest to get aid from the U.S.

"Additionally, we're left vulnerable, the colonel could continue to claim Marshall Law in a state of emergency which this might be. We'd be stripped of our rights; tanks would be permanently riding down our streets…"

She'd hoped she'd made her point by this time.

Kaneda looked absolutely lost, "Tanks?"

She nodded.

Kai was pretty sure Kei was still not going for the romance Kaneda had been hoping for. He stirred the makeshift food Kaneda had managed to put together as a breakfast, "I get ya. But what I don't see is how staying out here makes any difference. We're still in Neo-Tokyo along with the rest of the losers who survived. So what's the major difference between sitting here and the comfortable side of town?"

She sighed, "Over here, they can't verify that we're still alive, for all they know we're dead unless they decide to deliberately explore this side of the city which is doubtful. They'll have their hands full with trying to provide shelters and everything for the survivors. Over here, we're safe from tyranny that might be going on before a stable government finally comes up…if one does."

Kai nodded, satisfied with her answer, "Hey say, Kaneda, we could go and raid the nice side of Neo-Tokyo for food and such once we run out of stuff to eat on this side of town." He grinned.

Kei looked unhappy with that inference, obviously not comfortable with the biker gang mentality. Kai only shrugged his shoulders and finished the makeshift meal, "It was just an idea."

Kaneda had finished wolfing down his own breakfast in minutes and now sat taking a sip of a beer he'd found. Neither he nor Kai were surprised to find liquor in the girl's dorm. He stewed over the opinions and thoughts that had been tossed around over breakfast.

"You know Kei, Kai might be right; there isn't exactly an endless supply on this side of town. And I'd bet there are others out here like us who are scavenging around for food and stuff. We might have to get drastic sooner or later. But we'll stay out here Kai, because I don't particularly like being under anyone's thumb," he smiled a little.

"How long are we going to stay here then?" Kai asked.

Both shrugged and looked to Kei for the answer: "We need some sort of access to the news, something to tell us what's going on. If we know what's going on, we can probably figure out what to do more easily."

The electricity in the building had been shot. There was no question that they had no access to the television at the other end of the room.

"So…how do we do that with no electricity?" Kai asked.

Kei smiled, "I can go into the other part of the city and do some reconnaissance while you two stay here."

Kai blinked, "Huh? Why you?"

"Because unlike you two, I know how not to get into trouble," she answered with a smile.

It was settled, they'd decided. Kai spent the rest of the day scavenging the leveled portion of the city with Kaneda. Kei had immediately gone to town where people had crowded. Many of the news stations had been shut down the day before, and several of them permanently due to their location. But still, somewhere, something leaked, and if anyone could work their way through a leak in information, it was Kei.

* * *

The sun went down on the horizon of the rubble city. Kei had claimed the bed and let Kaneda sleep there as long as he meant no funny business. Kai had found a comfortable futon nearby to sleep on. Only he didn't sleep at first, instead, he lay in the enclosing darkness. His mind wanted to shut down, and wake up tomorrow to find that all this had been nothing but a nightmare, just a long and terrifying nightmare. He wanted to wake up to find Yamagata alive and kicking. He was beginning to miss his friend quite a bit more than he expected to.

In the bed, Kaneda couldn't sleep either; his mind was roving over what he'd experienced as of late. But his subconscious was taking over, his eyes couldn't help but close themselves, but as they did, he thought he'd witnessed an odd event, an event where he saw something floating before him.

"Must be the beer…" he mumbled to himself as sleep took over.


End file.
